For many years, the city of New Westminster did not keep pace with surrounding municipalities when it came to residential development fuelled by the SkyTrain system.

That’s now changing. The former B.C. capital — and the Lower Mainland’s oldest city — is increasingly no longer a stop along the way, but a destination, especially for younger people seeking affordable housing, suggests the president of one of the region’s prominent marketing firms.

“New Westminster is appealing to first-home buyers,” says Key Marketing president Cam Good in promoting Elliot Street, a 130-unit 19-storey residential tower overlooking the Fraser River, which is scheduled for occupancy in mid 2015. “It is the market for affordability in Metro Vancouver.”

The Elliot Street homes, an undertaking from the Censorio Group of Companies, start at $159,900, making them among the lowest priced units in Metro Vancouver. They are also a five-minute walk to one of five SkyTrain stations in the city.

Good also notes that they are a particularly good buy, given that it is hard to find a concrete building with units below the market price of $400 a square foot.

Both price and the buzz of new development are what drew Nicole Colby, a 26-year-old Richmond resident, who is poised — with help from her parents — to purchase an 880-square foot two-bedroom condo in Elliot Street for about $320,000.

“The price attracted me — and the whole rebirth of New Westminster with lots of cranes around the city,” Colby says. Her parents were so surprised at the pricing that they decided the two-bedroom unit was an even better deal for her than a one-bedroom suite.

After initially working with the city, the previous developer sold it to Censorio Group, which took the original concept, started seven years ago, and reworked it.

In concert with the original architects — GBL of Vancouver — Censorio “re-energized” both the exterior and interior of the building. Interior changes included introducing a more open-space design to increase the flow between the dining/living areas, the kitchen, and the bedroom areas by installing translucent sliding panels. It also increased the walk-in closet space.

GBL’s Eric Schroeder says his firm is particularly proud of how it adapted the building in the southeast neighbourhood by introducing nine two-level townhomes that create a friendlier scale in a district dominated by low-rise rental buildings.

“We really have a good fit with the neighbourhood and are a bridge between some of the smaller-scale walk-ups and the towers now there and going in,” he said.

The tower features terra cotta-coloured vertical metal panels that are complemented by the combination of brick, concrete and more liberal use of glazing than in earlier designs. It also was configured to fit seven units on each floor, five of them with southern views of the Fraser River, the Pattullo and SkyTrain bridges and two with views of the North Shore mountains through oversized windows overlooking liberally spaced balconies. Albert Crescent Park to the southeast — connected to the building by a public walkway — ensures the view corridor will not be lost to future construction.

Schroeder says a major strength for New Westminster is its heritage Columbia Street with its many shops and restaurants, a theme amplified by many other developers. But for GBL, it was “not just about revitalizing a neighbourhood but also about creating a new destination.”

“The history is there already, so we wanted to focus on how we are going to change the history moving forward,” Schroeder said.

Among the Elliot Street features likely to attract younger buyers is a new software system Censorio is offering called Bazinga, “the killer app for happy condos.” The web-based system gives condo owners information on everything from manuals for all their appliances, maintenance schedules and building alerts to minutes of all strata meetings, building social events and more.

Meanwhile, in terms of growth in 2011, the city posted $15.1 million in development permits per square kilometre, says Blair Fryer, the city’s communications manager.

“We’ve got geography on our side,” says Fryer. “If you take a map of Metro Vancouver and throw a dart at the bull’s eye, you’re going to hit New Westminster.

“The figure really speaks to the tremendous rate of development going on here,” he said. “We also have one of the highest rates of growth in Metro Vancouver predicted, with the city forecast to hit 100,000, up from 65,000, by the year 2031.”

Fryer rattles off a long list of developments that are either completed, underway or planned: a retail development integrated into SkyTrain station that features a 10-screen movie theatre, boutique shops and a grocery store across from Westminster Quay, the 10-acre Westminster Pier park along the Fraser River, a new civic centre and office block, a Westfair Foods retail development in Sapperton, and TransLink’s move of its headquarters to New Westminster from Metrotown next spring.

With this work, it is forecast that the city will require another 7,400 units, nearly all of them apartments, to be built over the next few decades.

That also bodes well for investors considering Elliot Street suites, says Good, adding they can expect that one-bed units will command about $1,400 a month and two-bed units about $1,550 a month.

Michael Richardson, who moved from Windsor, Ont., two years ago and opened his Red Brick furniture store on Sixth Street, says New Westminster finally is getting the attention it deserves.

Richardson, who ran furniture stores back east, says he has been watching the city for several years and chose to locate Red Brick in New Westminster over other areas because he believes it is an urban area “that is about to boom.”

“It fit all my criteria: It’s central, it’s on mass transit, it’s urban, it has a fantastic old downtown full of old buildings. You usually put all those together and you have the makings for a fantastic area.”

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